


(For You)

by missred



Series: Being Human [3]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Arguments, Best Friends, Body Horror, Dan Lewis is doing his best, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Non-Consensual, Other, Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Sick Eddie Brock, Sickfic, how to be a good body-roommate to your human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:53:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missred/pseuds/missred
Summary: It's a lot harder to argue when neither one of you can give the other any space.(non-con and body horror warnings are for brief use of Eddie's body without his consent)





	(For You)

Having an alien slam him against a wall turned out to not be the most disturbing part of Dan Lewis’s day. The most disturbing part of his day was when he got the blood results for his girlfriend’s ex, and immediately had to start figuring out how to tell him him that he was dying. Again.

Dan gloved and gowned up before re-entering the exam room. He didn’t know how much help it would be now but it was better than nothing. He started when he swung open the door. Eddie was still sleeping, black goo spread over him in thick swaths, but those large milky eyes had been watching the door. Before Dan could make a sound Venom disappeared into Eddie, tapping the side of his cheek lightly before he was invisible altogether.

Eddie scrubbed his face. Even an hour later he looked worse--shaky, sweaty, and tired.

“Did you get out of surgery or something?” Eddie asked.

“No, Eddie. I don’t know how to tell you this--”

“Just spit it out Dan.” Eddie coughed out with a humorless laugh.“Cause I’m ready to admit this doesn’t feel like any flu I’ve ever had.”

“Well your white blood cell count is almost nonexistent, your T-cell count wasn’t even readable on the test. I’m not sure how it happened, Eddie, but your test results are showing as if you’re completely immunocompromised.”

“Wait, like I’m not beating this flu? Can you give me like, antibiotics or something?” Eddie asked. Inside him Venom shifted nervously. Neither one of them liked the look on Dan’s face, and it was even harder to read him with the mask over his mouth.

“Antibiotics are only going to be effective in your body is already fighting back on it’s own, even a little bit. Eddie, your immune system is non-existent. I know you probably don’t want to be admitted with your extenuating circumstances, but our best chance here is getting you into an isolation unit in the I.C.U. maybe with high dose intravenous antibiotics there might be a chance of recovery and--”

“I’m--hold on--are you saying I’m dying?”

“Without treatment, at the state you’re in now, yes.” Dan said, right as Venom snarled

**“NO!”**

Eddie was gone, and a mass of black covered his entire body.

 **YOU WILL FIX US OR WE WILL** **_EAT_ ** **YOU, AND EVERY OTHER USELESS HUMAN IN THIS CITY, YOU WILL _NOT_ LET EDDIE DIE!”**

Dan tried very, very hard to keep still.

“Eddie? Can you talk to your--” Dan gulped, Venom’s teeth still bared and precariously close to his throat, “--friend?”

A moment later Eddie reappeared.

“Shit, Dan I’m so sorry, _we_ are so sorry. He doesn’t handle death well. Or anything well actually I mean I don’t want to die really don’t I was fine two days ago but he’ll be fine really I told him he can find a different host--”

**NO NEW HOSTS. WE WILL NOT DIE.**

“ And um. Yeah. Just it’s a lot to process.”

“At the risk of sounding insensitive, is it possible he caused this? Because honestly Eddie there is no medical explanation that could decimate your immune system this quickly or completely.”

Eddie huffed. His heart was racing, an automatic reaction to being told he was going to die probably, or end up in a lab if he went in for treatment and they found--what they couldn’t find.

“Ven. You got something you want to tell me?”

Inside his head, it was quiet. Then,

 **When we first bonded, you had...many small parasites. They were weak, nothing like** **_us_ ** **. But they were a nuisance, so I absorbed them for fuel.**

“WHAT?” Eddie pounded his thigh, wishing he could pull Venom out and strangle him. “YOU _ATE_ MY IMMUNE SYSTEM?!

 **“I didn’t know it had a function!”** Venom protested, popping out to look Eddie in the eye. **“They were useless and annoying, trying to push me from your body, and you are** **_mine_ ** **, so I--”**

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER. I thought we were cool!”

**“Why do you want weaker lifeforms anyway?! I protect us, I keep us safe!”**

Eddie started pacing, shaking his head and ignoring the pleading head following his every move.

“Oh no no no I’ve learned my lesson. You can just go. Go bond with a cat or something just get _out--_ ”

Eddie was clawing at his chest, prying at the slime extending from in between his lungs, and then he was swallowed up entirely. Venom crashed through the window and leapt out of the building, leaving Dan to wonder how the hell he was going to explain this to maintenance, or to Anne.

* * *

It had been a long time since Eddie had felt trapped by Venom instead of in sync with him. All the terror of that first few days rushed back and he yelled and kicked inside the darkness.

“You can’t keep this up forever and then I swear to god I’m going to stick us in an MRI machine and go back to to being me you shitty fucking parasite let me out!”

 **Eddie.** Venom sounded almost sad. **I am sorry I ate your small parasites. I did not know they served a purpose.**

“Yeah me too jesus you could have asked and I would have told you--”

 **I did not think of us as we. When I absorbed your fighting cells. I thought of you as** \--Venom shuddered-- **my ride.**

Eddie was pissed and frustrated and scared, and he beat at Venom’s control.

“Well now I’m gonna die cause you didn’t know how to share and you can go find somebody else’s life to ruin.”

**I will go. If you do not want to be us. But I can’t let you back yet. I am trying to fix us.**

Eddie paused, half focused on his words and half focused on their apartment door.

“What do you mean? You can’t fix me being sick. I know you, you would have done it.”

**No. Too many variables. I am afraid I would harm us trying. But I am restoring your small parasites. Hard to focus. Need to remember how they tasted.  It’s easier when I know you are safe. I will look for a new host when I am finished.**

Venom sat them on the bed and Eddie stopped fighting him. A few minutes later, he seeped back under Eddie’s skin. Eddie felt phenomenally exhausted, but he knew he couldn’t just sleep.

“Ven?” He asked. The symbiote was curled around his heart again, making himself as small as he could.

 **Yes, Eddie.** And he could hear the tiredness in Venom’s voice as well.

“I’m sorry I called you a parasite. You’re not, you’re, you’re my friend.”

 **Friend.** Venom tested the word out carefully.

“Probably my best friend actually, which is pretty pathetic when you think about-- ow!” Eddie shouted more out of shock than pain as a single tentacle smacked him across the cheek.

 **You are a loser Eddie,** Venom hummed happily, **but we are not pathetic.**

“You’re right Ven,” Eddie sighed, stroking the tendril softly, “We’re not.”

* * *

It took more than a week for Eddie to even start feeling better. The next morning he called Dan and apologized profusely, Venom even popping out to say Dan was “ **not worth eating** ” which was pretty high praise. After explaining that he was mostly sure he wasn’t going to die,

 **We are not-** -Venom interrupted-- **I protect us better than any measly doctors** \-- Dan wrote him a script for a two week course of antibiotics to help with the bronchitis. Everything else they kind of had to deal with on their own. Eddie’s body had kind of gone haywire, and it took longer than either of them liked to recover.

In the meantime, Eddie spent a lot of time sleeping with Venom curled protectively over him. The symbiote didn’t let him out of his sight, metaphorically speaking. He refused to let Eddie use knives for a few weeks after the incident, hissing whenever he got too close to them and ripping the object in question open with his teeth. It was a little messier than Eddie would have preferred but he didn’t argue. The near-death experience had shaken them both. Venom compromised by letting him take the pills Dan prescribed, as well as tylenol and nyquil to help ease their feverish achy body.

He grumbled at the intrusion, disliking anything affecting them other than his own work, but Eddie placated him explaining, “It might not make anything better any faster, but we’ll feel less shitty while we wait.”

Two weeks later, Eddie felt light years better. Venom was still grumpy. They got lightheaded easily, still felt shaky and tired even when they slept enough, and Eddie hadn’t felt like eating anything for weeks. Venom, unwilling to leave or him or drag him out of the apartment, had been reduced to snatching pigeons out of the air from the open window, Eddie curled up on the couch in a blanket.

It left him on edge, having to hunt such small creatures, trying to protect a host that didn’t want to feed himself, no matter how much Venom coaxed.

“It’s a human thing.” Eddie explained while Venom hissed in frustration at his lack of interest in the tater tots Venom had lovingly burnt in the oven. “Just don’t feel hungry when we’re sick.”

**Humans are ridiculous. We need more food when dealing with these miniscule pests. Not less.**

“Germs, V. They’re called germs, remember? And that’s just how it is.”

 **Germs is too kind a word for such nasty beasts. They hurt** **_our_ ** **Eddie.**

Eddie laughed out loud at that, the hoarse sound of it surprising both of them.

“What would I do without you?” Eddie asked.

 **“Die probably.”** Venom emerged, liicking a playful stripe up Eddie’s face. **“Humans are incredibly fragile creatures.”**

He grinned with far too many teeth as Eddie pulled a face and rubbed slime off his face with their forearm.

“You best start believing in humans, Venom, you’re in one.”

Venom nudged his face into Eddie’s shoulder, nuzzling into the spot by his shoulder and neck.

**“Best human.”**

“Yeah, yeah, I love you too, you nasty alien.”

Venom let out a low murmur like a purr and reached out, adjusting the blanket so only Eddie’s head poked out.

**“Movie, Eddie?”**

“Sure, whatever you want.” And he settled in, head cradled gently in a tendril, while Venom hit the lights.

**Author's Note:**

> ...Immunocompromised Eddie. That's where I was going. Live your dreams, kids. This is the closest I've ever posted anything together because this story beat at my brain like a bat in hell. Also picked up some extra Feelings along the way.


End file.
